Nov. 4, 2024-- As described above, the district has been exploring what schools are doing throughout 2024-2025 to implement the Kindness Campaign. At High School South, however, it might be easier to ask, "What aren't you doing to spread kindness?"

What else could be expected from the building that describes itself as Kindness Town, USA?

The very concept of kindness is explored in the school's newsletters, which serve as the primary source of school happenings, the literary and digital epicenter of a culture steeped in spirit and camaraderie.

"Is kindness an inherent trait or is it something we learn through experience?" the Oct. 21 newsletter asks. "Psychologists, social scientists, and other researchers say it's both. Not only are we predisposed to being kind, we can increase our capacity for kindness throughout our lives."

Increasing the capacity for kindness is what the school specializes in. It also specializes in popcorn-- its famous kernel machine popping off every Friday. And these two specialties have merged, as each week's kindness winners-- students showing empathy toward those with medical issues, who helped a peer in need, who volunteered for a task, who included others in a group activity, etc.-- receive a complimentary bag.

Is it working? Here are the winners from just the past couple of weeks:

It's not just the "kindness korn treat" of delicious popcorn. Winners are entered into the monthly kindness raffle and can receive a pizza from Papa John's and various gift cards from local businesses.

"We like to believe, and I DO believe, that our students practice kindness regardless, because that's the South way, something embedded in our school culture," said High School South Principal Kevin Raylman. "But it's super important-- especially as part of this campaign-- to celebrate those who put kindness into practice, because you never know what kind of lasting impact that's going to have on them and others. It also helps extend and sustain the culture we've built here."

High School South teachers have been hosting monthly lessons and activities that encourage kindness in the building. Each month presents a new sub-theme centered on the initiative, and these lessons are supplemented with videos and built into content areas and instruction.

The school's German Exchange Program-- there is no other international program quite like it in the district-- is one of the purest embodiments of kindness. Through the program, which has been actively happening over the past several weeks, South students accept and assimilate German students into the school, into the Toms River community, and into their lives. They take their new German friends pumpkin picking, trick or treating, on trips to New York City (right) and the boardwalk and Island Beach State Park, and introduce them to school and community institutions like football games and the annual Halloween Parade.

"The goal of this exchange program, now in its fifth year," said German teacher Tim DeMarco, "is to provide students with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience another culture as no tourist can, and to foster cultural understanding and improve language skills."

By the end of each two-week program-- which this year began Oct. 19-- everyone is changed. Everyone is different. Because this level of kindness and acceptance affects the giver as much as the receiver.

Which brings us back to the HSS newsletter.

"In an article for UNESCO’s The Blue Dot," a recent newsletter read, "university professors Michael Karlin and Brendan Ozawa-de Silva underscore Keltner’s findings: 'As with all mammals and birds, we are not self-sufficient at birth, or even for several years thereafter. Therefore, this basic need for care means that even on a cellular level—deep within our biology and physiology—we respond to kindness. We are interdependent and our bodies know it.'"

This anecdote is signed off: High School South~Kindness Town, USA.

Tough to argue.